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Google to Open Google Earth Imagery

Written by Chad on April 1st, 2008

google

Got sent this press release from someone at Google who wants to remain anonymous.

Google Admits it Made a Mistake, Opens Google Earth Imagery to Users Outside Google Earth

Mountain View, Calif. — March 31, 2008 — Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that they were wrong in regards to how the imagery in Google Earth is used.  Larry Brin, Janitor in Sector Three is quoted as saying; “There has long been confusion about the imagery in Google Earth.  It seems that a lot of this imagery is public domain.  But yet we keep telling people only Google Maps and Google Earth can view this imagery, so it seems we have been wrong for the last three years.”

Google, after seeing the success of Microsoft Virtual Earth and the Yahoo Maps sharing their imagery to the public outside of their applications, is getting on the band wagon and hoping to get people to think Google thought of this first and stop using Virtual Earth and Yahoo! Maps.  “Once we figure out how to make money on this, we will open the imagery up for all to use” Says Google door man Joe Blismo.

 

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6 Comments so far ↓

  1. Apr
    1
    7:10
    AM
    Fabrizio Giudici

    Great news.

    Can you please give me some reference to the Microsoft Virtual Earth and Yahoo Maps terms of use allowing for third parties usage? For what concerns the former, I believed one should ask for the permission to Microsoft; I did that ten months ago, got an initial response and then nothing more…

  2. Apr
    1
    7:28
    AM
    Chris C.

    This an outrage – I paid my $400 for access to Google Earth imagery and now they’re giving it away!

    Google – a poor silly fad? I think so.

  3. Apr
    1
    7:57
    AM
    wondering

    I wonder if this is an April fools joke

  4. Apr
    1
    10:32
    AM
    Matthew Giger

    Snarf. That’ll be the day. I heard they also changed their informal motto today to “Don’t be evil unless it’s profitable”

  5. Apr
    1
    12:22
    PM
    SinisterMatt

    This has got to be a prank. As I recall, Google buys a lot of the imagery for Google Earth from other companies, and I think they own the copyright on it, so there really is no (at least legal) way of releasing the GE imagery into the Public Domain.

    Cheers!

  6. Apr
    1
    1:36
    PM
    Chad

    @SinisterMatt: So, you are saying then that Google made a really crappy deal then? Microsoft is getting the same kind of imagery and they are open to the use of the Virtual Earth plug-in where the imagery loads in WorldWind. And Yahoo! is also open to letting others use their imagery outside the Yahoo! Maps API.

    And there is also a lot of Public Domain imagery in Google Earth as well.. Google even goes to local governments and says they will host this data for them.. which is great.. but now you can not use that hosted imagery in anything else, you have to use Google Earth / Maps.

    You would have to get that data if you wanted to use it, and serve it yourself.